Personal Finance Tool

Context

I was the founding researcher on the team for CIBC Smart Planner, helping to build it from the ground up. This was a personal finance tool to help with money management to help scale financial advice/planning for those who did not have a dedicated financial advisor. At the time, this was not functionality that was available in any of the major banking apps.

Role

I was a thought partner to product and design, and I helped ground our strategy in user needs. I also presented to a wide audience of stakeholders every two weeks (along with design and product) to update on progress and what we learned that sprint, and for us all to discuss and make decisions. In all of these conversations, big and small, I would give input based on research that we had done and/or identify research opportunities, which I had in a prioritized research backlog that I maintained.

Research Overview

• Foundational research into money management
• Tree testing
• Regular usability testing
• Concept validation for new features

Early Research

• At the outset of the project, I did some research with SMEs and desk research to come up with our base personas (at both ends of the money management spectrum) and the journey to get from one to the other
• Our understanding of this journey informed our design (e.g. our task flows, goals and information needs at each stage, etc.) and it also provided a structure in which all other research could fit
• Throughout the project, as I conducted more and more interviews, I would fill in more of the picture with more specific behavioural topics as well as research into specific financial goals

Highlights

Insight	Impact
One of the biggest barriers to financial wellbeing is a lack of confidence or perceived 'achievability'	Emotional design (e.g. showing progression, celebrating wins and generally adopting a 'coach' role for the user)
There are different types of goals (in terms of priority, time horizon and concreteness)	'Wishlist' functionality to capture the goal while they are thinking about it but without the need to flesh it out or start saving for it
Financial distress can also come from a lack of awareness of a person's current behaviours or the gravity of their situation	Insights based on their transaction history, which are actionable via our saving/budgeting/financial planning tools

Subsequent Research

Highlights

Research	Impact
Tree Testing	Determined the structure and labelling of our information architecture. Identified ambiguity and complexity in the proposal leading to low success rates deeper in the hierarchy. Identified user logic/natural workflow and expectations. Reran the test after iterating and validated with increased task success.
Regular Usability Testing	Usability testing at every step of the way shaped all of our decisions, allowed us to iterate with confidence and gave our team credibility with stakeholders.
Concept Validation	Foundational research into account partitioning and aggregation uncovered current usage and desirability for this functionality. Concierge-method testing of our goal recommendations (via spreadsheet in moderated sessions) identified concrete ways to improve our algorithm.
Frontline Research	Foundational research into the workflow of frontline staff showed an opportunity to integrate our intake questionnaire into their process as there was some overlap, and the asynchronous nature of our product helped avoid awkward conversations in-person, as well as saving time in an already packed agenda. We also uncovered other overarching issues with the process that helped validate other initiatives and helped to inform changes to training.